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Duhaime's Law Dictionary

De Jure Definition:

The term has come to describe a lawful, legal control of a state or a corporation.

For example, a de juregovernment is one which has been created in respect of constitutional law and is in all ways legitimate even though a de facto government may be in control.

John Bouvier wrote in his Law Dictionary:

"De jure: rightfully; of right; lawfully; by legal title.

"A governmentde jure but not de facto is one deemed lawful, which has been supplemented. A governmentde jure and also de facto is one deemed lawful, which is present or established. A government de facto is one deemed unlawful, but which is present or established. Any established government, be it lawful or not, is a government de facto."

In International Law, the authors wrote:

"De jure/de facto recognition: In effect such a recognition denotes how an entity is recognized rather than a description of the recognition. The essence of the distinction was that an entity recognized as de facto possessed most of the necessary components of sovereignty, whereas a de jure entity possessed complete sovereignty."

"... de jure control is just what it is stated to be, control at law.... If majority ownership does not allow for real legal control over a company, the de jure test of control will not have been met."

"... de jure control ... the test for such control generally accepted to be whether the controlling party enjoys, by virtue of its shareholdings, the ability to elect the majority of the board of directors.

"However, it must be recognized at the outset that this test is really an attempt to ascertain who is in effective control of the affairs and fortunes of the corporation. That is, although the directors generally have, by operation of the corporate law statute governing the corporation, the formal right to direct the management of the corporation, the majority shareholder enjoys the indirect exercise of this control through his or her ability to elect the board of directors. Thus, it is in reality the majority shareholder, not the directors per se, who is in effective control of the corporation."

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Duhaime Lawisms

Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.
Charles Lamb (1775-1834) in The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple

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Unless otherwise noted, this article was written by Lloyd Duhaime, Barrister, Solicitor, Attorney and Lawyer (and Notary Public!). It is not intended to be legal advice and you would be foolhardy to rely on it in respect to any specific situation you or an acquaintance may be facing. In addition, the law changes rapidly and sometimes with little notice so from time to time, an article may not be up to date. Therefore, this is merely legal information designed to educate the reader. If you have a real situation, this information will serve as a good springboard to get legal advice from a lawyer.